Sunday, August 5, 2012

#CookForJulia French-Style Country Pâté for #SundaySupper

When I list my heroes,
Julia Child is at the top. So I was thrilled to discover the #SundaySupper
group of bloggers planned to honor her today. I joined the group because I
believe in the importance of sitting down to the dinner table as a family,
however your family is designed. That my first post features Julia and is
part of the PBS Food
#CookForJulia celebration just adds to the fun! And considering all of the
stories told about her dinner gatherings in the kitchen, these posts seem more
than appropriate!

Yes, I admire Julia’s cooking skills and ability to teach those skills to others, but I most
admire her quest to find her talent at the age of 37 and the passion she gave
to the pursuit once she found her life’s calling. Her journey parallels my own
somewhat, since I was near that age when my first newspaper article was
published. And like her husband, Paul, I also have a wonderful love who
supports my own pursuit of my life’s passion. (I wrote a great deal about my admiration
for Julia on her birthday last year. You can read it here.)

One summer a couple
of years ago when I was a food reporter in New Hampshire, the chef/owner of a Manchester restaurant invited me to be a celebrity chef
for one night to raise money for the local food bank. Since I admire Julia, and
the Julie & Julia movie was about
to open, the chef and I planned a Julia Child-inspired menu. I even helped
prepare and serve the dishes.

It was a hot summer
evening, but everyone had a great time and the food was wonderful. I was so
busy that I only got a taste of each dish, but the one I remember the most was
the French-Style Country Pâté, a recipe we took right out of Julia’s Kitchen Wisdom.

The pâté has
ingredients that are easy to find at most grocery stores, and it is simple to make.
However, it does take time to bake, and it tastes best if you eat it a day or
two after it’s made. So plan ahead.
The ingredients for
the recipe below came right from Julia’s
Kitchen Wisdom, but I used two of her other books to come up with the
proper pâté-making technique.

What’s wonderful
about this pâté is it not only makes a lovely starter to a meal, but it also
can be a meal in itself. Just add some olives, goat cheese, cherry tomatoes and
bread, and you have an elegant, light summer supper!

French-Style Country
Pâté

Adapted from Julia’s
Kitchen Wisdom and From Juila Child’s Kitchen, by Julia Child; and Mastering
the Art of French Cooking, by Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle, and Simone
Beck.

Saute the onions in the butter until they are translucent
and tender. Set aside to cool. Place the chicken livers into a food processor
and pulse until well ground.

In a large bowl, place all of the ingredients, including the
onions and chicken livers, and mix together until all of the ingredients are
well incorporated. Turn the mixture into the loaf pan and pack well. Cover the
pan with a piece of waxed paper and foil. Set the loaf pan into another larger pan.
Pour boiling water into the larger pan, and then bake for 1 1/4 to 2 hours, or
until the juices are a clear pale yellow and the internal temperature reaches
170 degrees F. (Mine took 2 hours.)

Remove the loaf pan from the larger water bath. Pour out the
water from the larger pan and then set the loaf pan back in. Place a board or another
pan directly on top of the covered pâté,
and then weigh it down with a 5-pound weight. (Canned goods worked for me.) Be
careful because some of the juices may spill out of the loaf pan, but this step
is necessary to create a compact and dense pâté. Let the pâté sit at room temperature
until it cools, and then place it, weights and all, into the refrigerator to chill.

Allow the pâté to chill
for at least a day before serving to develop the flavor.

Be sure to check out
my fellow #SundaySupper bloggers to see what they created in honor of Ms.
Child. And don’t forget to join us at 7:00
pm ET for our live chat on Twitter. Just use the hashtag #Sundaysupper
or Tweetchat.
Plus we would love to feature your recipes on our
#sundaysupper pinterest board and share them with all of our followers.

I make pate rarely--usually for an autumn wine and cheese spread--but I notice it goes first. Always. People are just crazy about it. Thanks for this cool post...gotta love Julia always. Enjoy your Sunday!

About Me

For more than a decade I have been a freelance writer. With more than 1,000 articles in print, my work has appeared in the Boston Globe, Topeka Capital-Journal, Concord Monitor, Around Concord, Hippo entertainment newspaper, Dallas Morning News, CatFancy, New Hampshire Home, Best of Burlington, Upper Valley Image, Woodstock Magazine, Better Nutrition, Great Life, Let’s Live, and American Airlines Custom Publishing. And I love to cook! I credit the women from my childhood for introducing me to the kitchen. My mother taught me how to sift ingredients for Tollhouse cookies and acted as my consultant while, at ten years of age, I fixed my first roast beef dinner. Grandma made homemade noodles that were so coated in flour that the chicken broth they boiled in became thick, rich gravy. And Mamaw created delicious meals in Missouri farmhouse kitchen that was the heart of her home. (And she actually hated to cook.) But my education in the finer points of good food came from television chefs such as Graham Kerr, Jeff Smith, Jacques Pépin, and, of course, Julia Child. She taught me to not be afraid of the most complicated dish thanks to her easy-going attitude about food.